Monthly Archives: June 2003

Since the turnaround time on stickers is about two months on average, whenever I get an order in, I send out an order for a new set. I've done this new set in a slightly different style, and have done a BME/HARD sticker as well. Anyway, below are the designs. Credit for the HUNG one goes to postmodgirl, the rest are done by me (not that they win any awards).

PS. If you're wondering how to get stickers, they're not for sale. I give about half of them to Ryan to give out with BMEshop orders, and then the rest I give out to folks who throw change in the old tip jar (so if you tip, be sure to include your address).

I got my latest sticker order in today; twelve new designs in all. I've been holding off on sending out thank-yous for people who donate via PayPal since I knew they were on the way, but now it's time to get some glue wet.

Nice try dude. I might have got fooled if it was just one piercing, or if it was five years ago and I had less experience, but it's not hard to tell a Photoshop job when I see one these days. So Franko's on the case.

Thank you so much for sending in this picture of your many piercings in your wang and coconut holder. A membership for you has been created and forwarded to both our headquarters in New Zealand (sorry, we don't have one in Australia) and to the fine folks at Chariot netconnect who let us know how to get in touch with you (you'd think hotmail accounts were anonymous, but they're not).

You authorization code is "BME: Apple Underwear Free Onions Doodle Doo 8 2 6" (note: NOT 826). If you call them and say that -- say nothing else -- your password details will be read back to you. Please note that it is important that when you make the call that you speak WITHOUT AN AUSTRALIAN ACCENT -- learn to speak like an American, it's better for you in the long run anyway -- as that may make the voice recognition process fail (it's fully automated). If it doesn't work, you'll just find yourself talking to a rather confused phone attendant, in which case you should apologize PROFUSELY -- or simply hang up and try again. Sometimes it takes a few trys.

God Bless,

Frank O'Derby "I get off on Exodus 20:15"

Also, a general observation. One of the problems that BME/HARD has, and all password protected sites have, is that people will share their passwords in chat rooms and so on, meaning that suddenly the account is being used by thousands of people all over the world and your site bandwidth can easily double or more in a matter of minutes.

Now here's the question: why are BME/HARD passwords stolen almost exclusively by Germans? I don't think I've processed a single one in the last couple months that wasn't from Germany…

As those of you who live there and have tried to map yourself on IAM, my location database always chooses the northern-most city of a given name due to the sort routine stacking them my co-ordinates. There are three cities called Rio de Janeiro in Brazil; only one has real meaning to most people, but all three are valid.

As such, the new mapping engine now is able to recognize multiple cities, and I've built in some quick functions to accomplish that. On the map below you can see an example for Rio (it's also rendered in an experimental dusk mode which I probably won't implement; basically it shows where on the earth is light/dark dependant on the time of day):

Anyway, that's not in place yet, but it will be soon, as will the email update integration — those are my two short-list projects right now. My apologies for not having the email tie-in complete already. I'd put in more hours if I could, but then I'd be dead.

I haven't mentioned news in a little while so I wanted to very briefly touch on two subjects. First, Republican forces are continuing to fight public access to both the 9-11 investigation and the investigation into the WMD lies that kick-started the un-provoked attacks (more, more) on Iraq. Is it not worrying to anyone that — right or wrong — thousands of people can be murdered by the government (a government “of the people” no less) at great expense and they are able to hide all record of their crimes and escape any questioning? (more, more)

Along those lines I highly recommend Robert Higgs' latest, Suppose You Want To Have a Permanent War (more) as very relevant reading… But anyway, the other point I wanted to bring up was that the “Continuity of Government Commission” just unanimously voted to add a new ammendment to the Constitution allowing them to appoint members of the US House of Representatives in times of crisis. That is, a suspension of democracy. (more, more)

Americans have seen their rights slashed to “protect them from terrorism” while at the same time watching their economy go down the hole while watching their politicians get richer and richer… Now with the threat of eliminating democracy and replacing it with a dictatorship in order to “protect them from terrorism”, I really have to wonder when good people just start snapping and organizing grass-roots assassination campaigns a la the French Revolution?

In more world-friendly notes I've rebuilt my world city database (all 160 meg of it) to properly support multiple cities of the same name in one country. I still have to build the front-end for it, but it means now that Brazil won't be such a mess. I had to fight with it for a while — it wanted to put most cities in the oceans off southern Africa, but that's fixed now.